Texas Christian University athletic director Jeremiah Donati covered a range of topics in a recent interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, including donor fatigue in the NIL era, conference realignment and TCU's new facilities projects.
TCU's football program is working to bounce back from a sub-.500 season in 2023, one year after reaching the College Football Playoff championship game. The men’s basketball team is looking at another tournament berth, while the women’s team is trying to sneak into the postseason after forfeiting two games in January. Meanwhile TCU's baseball team won the Big 12 Tournament last year and is now one of the highest-ranked teams in the country. Here's what he had to say about the broader world of college athletics and the Horned Frogs' place in it.
On being left out of the latest round of realignment in football...
“I feel great about the conference we’re in. It feels a lot better to be on this side of it than we found ourselves previously. Most notably a couple years ago when Texas and Oklahoma left, there was a lot of uncertainty there. For now, I love our commissioner, I love the conference we’re in. The makeup next year of having those 16 teams in, I think we’re going to be really competitive.
“I think there will be some really good football programs. I would be lying to you if I said I had a crystal ball or I could guarantee the same feeling five or 10 years from now. Because there are so many other forces at play right now, these lawsuits, the (College Football Playoff) negotiations, the disparity in television revenue. Realignment or conference expansion is going to continue to happen. It’s probably going to contract rather than expand from the conferences’ standpoint. I can tell you right now on Feb. 28 I feel really good about it and everything we’ve done as a conference. There’s more uncertainty in our business than there’s ever been.”
On relying on a smaller alumni base for NIL and fundraising for bigger projects...
“We’ve been fortunate to punch above our weight class. We’ve got good resources, but I think as a university we’ve done a good job of being resourceful with those resources. I think we’ve made good coaching hires, I think Fort Worth is a great destination. I think our physical campus is an attractive place to be.... but the NIL piece is concerning, the sustainability of it. I think we’re seeing a lot of collectives around the country and NIL supporters are starting to run out of gas. 'Hey this was really popular when it first came out and now the same people that want to support it are saying how much longer do you need me to do this? This is not how I envisioned supporting the university... I’m seeing a lot of headlines about ‘Help, this isn’t sustainable.’ I’m talking about from the big boy schools, not Group of Five schools.”
On bringing NIL efforts in-house...
I’ve changed my tune on this, I would prefer it’s in-house. I would prefer to control it, for it to be on the ground level. We’ve got tremendous fundraisers here, I prefer they’re the ones that are running it. I’d like to give them university credit for supporting it, I’d like to give them priority points, we could get a little more creative with it if we had total control of it. I think our collective does a really good job and I commend them for doing what they’re doing, but if I could, that would be one move I would make tomorrow.”
On TCU's Athletics Human Performance Center renovation and expansion...
“I think there are a lot of things we’re pouring into these facilities that will touch all of our programs. The restoration Wellness Center we just announced that the Simpson family was generous to help support, we haven’t done anything like that, that’s this comprehensive. I’m proud we’re able to pull that off and then if you go back to the economic driver of any athletics program being football, we’re making the appropriate investment there having their own standalone space. We’re hitting a lot of birds with one stone there.”
